Exclusive: UFC Belem’s Tim Johnson Says GoFundMe Wasn’t As Planned
Top-15 UFC Heavyweight Tim Johnson turned heads when he started a GoFundMe to help send two additional corner men with him to his fight next weekend in Belem, Brazil.
The UFC sends two corner men with each fighter, but Johnson prefers to take four, and was hopeful he could raise the funds to make it happen. When speaking to Fightful.com's James Lynch, Tim Johnson said that originally the GoFundMe wasn't intended to be open to fans. After a night's sleep, Johnson was surprised to learn the goal had been met.
"This wasn't supposed to be public. This was supposed to be on my private Facebook with friends and acquaintances and that type of stuff to donate. I'm not that good with technology, posted it public, went to bed and woke up to all of that. I was quite surprised. There's a guy who donated an amount enough for the whole thing. We're going to be able to give a good amount to Wounded Warrior," said Johnson.
Often times those using crowd sourcing as Johnson did can face criticism for asking for a "hand out," and Johnson became well aware of that.
"Once articles came out on the subject I went and looked at the comments were about 50/50. I just wanted to ask my friends, people who know me and support me. I didn't really want to be asking strangers for money," Johnson laughed. "In general, I didn't really want to do it. I was just stuck. Monday we thought we had all the money and one of the (sponsors) kind of backed out on it. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place."
In the full interview, Tim Johnson (11-4) discusses his upcoming fight against Marcelo Golm (6-0) at UFC Fight Night 125 on Feb. 3. Tim also talks about the GoFundMe account he setup to fly his coaches out for this fight and why it wasn't meant to be public.
